In our week 3 Session, We were placed into groups of 12 were we would discuss our 3 ideas and try and narrow it down to one solid idea. This focus group allowed me to see my ideas from different perspectives and notice the flaws in some of them that I would be too blinded to notice.
Reminder: My idea for this would be an app that stores all your Identification cards on your phone. From there, your phone would act as a 'master key'. So where as something like Apple Wallet focuses on Bank cards and travel passes, This app will focus on securely storing your identification cards. This includes cards that grant you access to specific areas based on your identity. So think gym cards and employee cards.
So A number of issues had been raised with this idea. I initially compared it to apple wallet but for ID cards. I made this comparison based on the assumption that Apple hadn't included this feature due to some oversight. But it turns out there are actually laws against this and Apple will soon have this feature implemented into the wallet. So that kind of killed this idea. This idea was my favourite of the bunch so I was disheartened to see it tossed aside so quickly.
Reminder: The road to recovery for most addicts can be a long and daunting task with many obstacles along the way. This App would help to keep the person focused on their goals and recovery through the use of regular reminders, habit tracking and a reward-on-goal system.
After some debate, This idea came out on top, as having the most potential. The idea has a target audience which is large enough to get some strong research and evidence to back up the need of an app like this. I can also do some research into addiction and the people who become victims of addiction.
The nature of the app serves a meaningful purpose which will give me more passion for this project. I have personally seen the affects of addiction is some of my close relatives so tackling the issue is something I am eager to investigate.
Reminder: This idea was inspired by an instagram page known as The happy broadcast. The page posts illustrated summaries of positive news stories from the previous week. My idea takes the core value of the IG page and utilises it to refine the news stories you see on a daily basis. For example, if you're having a bad day and would like to see more positive stories, you can choose to filter out all the negative stories for a period of time or until you reset it yourself.
This idea was a kind of middle ground. It had some merit but wasn't very exciting. The web extension could be useful and adopted by a large audience. But past its named function, it wouldn't do much else. So I scrapped this idea. I also felt that this was too close to our 2nd year projects were we had to tackle the news and I want to try something new for this year.
This focus group helped me pick a clear winner for my project. Idea No.2 has the most potential for a final year project and this is most likely be my choice. In saying that, I will take some time to have another brainstorm to see if I can land on anything else before finally settling on an idea. Going forward, My next step will be to undertake a SWOT analysis of the recovery app idea and see how it might function as a product.